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The CEO at one of my former portfolio companies (we sold LeanLogistics last year to Brambles Logistics), Dan Dershem, reminded me of the most important question an entrepreneur can ask themselves as they develop their business/product/service plan--who writes the check?

What he meant was who writes the check at your potential customers. When I ask the question of entrepreneurs, I often get a foggy answer. Next to having a world class product/service idea, the most important part of a business plan is figuring out who is going to write you the big checks to buy the solution.

I have sat on boards where this can be the question du jour. It often starts with the concept that a C-level executive is going to be the key decision maker/buyer. Fine, but the C-levels turn over the details to their subordinates and that's where the problems start. Your world class product/service technology undoubtedly steps on someone's toes/project/ego/whatever. What started out as an easy sale to the CEO ends up in a nightmare of bureaucracy, with numerous additional "approvals" needed to close the deal.

How can you avoid this rookie mistake?

First, be sure that you can answer the question: "who writes the check?", not only in developing your initial business plan, but every time you need money--from Uncle Jack, outside investors, customers or your bank. You need to clearly understand the terms and conditions under which they fund companies, as well as what types of businesses they are interested in funding.

Second, make sure your team is tuned into where the money will ultimately come from in the products and services you are developing. Designing solutions for the wrong audience can make the sales process difficult and elongated, as additional players need to be sold.

Third, you better be working all the "influencer's" in the potential customer organization besides the C-level executive. No one likes to be told by the C-level guys that they are stupid for not having discovered your great new solutions. Theses "influencer's" will find all sorts of reasons to make your deal and your life difficult.

Finally, keep testing the market place around the "who writes the check?" concept. When you see competitors who have equal or inferior (note: they are never better than your product, right?) offerings beating you in the market, I'll bet they are doing a superior job of getting to the people who write the checks at the customers.

Mr. Market sure has done a job on most of our portfolio company valuations in recent months, not to mention individual portfolios. I began thinking that perhaps his wife, Mrs. Market, might take a kinder, more gentler approach to managing global finances. I did find a photo of her, dressed in her early 1900's finery, but no indication that she was interested in taking over the management role from her dear husband, who is perhaps best personified by Mr. Henry Potter from It's a Wonderful Life.

But this did not deter me from thinking about how Mrs. Market would react to the current financial crisis. Would she be motherly towards her panicked children, telling them to wait out the storm in safe investments? Would she be aggressive and tell them that there has never been a better time in their lives to invest in solid companies? Would she practice the fear and loathing that bankers and other lenders, like Mr. Potter, have wrought on the poor folk in Bedford Falls?

My sense is that she would do none of these. Unlike Mr. Market, who believes that all worldly solutions to financial dealings should be solved in a free market setting, Mrs. Market would be much more pragmatic. After all, she is the one who has to feed the children when the husband runs away or dies in a tragic accident. She knows all about dealing with crises.

She would let weak companies fail, then work to rebuild economies around those companies who will be long-term survivors. People will lose jobs and eventually will get new ones. She would not let anyone starve to death, although everyone will not get what they think they deserve. She would sacrifice her own well being to make her kids more successful.

We are a society that has run up big debts and will run up more in the next few years. That will create burdens for our children unless we get down to business now and revamp the world economies. We should start the painful process now and stay away from corporate/state/local government bailouts that will only prolong the misery.

Let the markets work, but with compassion. We never want the miseries of the Great Depression again. People will need to be helped through foreclosures, finding new jobs and financial restructuring. But we should use our national wealth to invest in the new, new world, not the bankrupt industries that lead us to the precipice. That, in my mind, is what Mrs. Market would do.

So you all of a sudden realized that your sales pipeline has dried up? That is clear from the hundreds of "new" emails I am getting every day from people I do business with. Forget about it. You are just irritating me. I do not care if everyone else has stopped buying your products. I am not going to make up the difference.

Which brings me to the point of this blog. Any marketer who goes into panic mode and sends an email a day, instead of one every few weeks should be fired. You really need a consistent and well planned approach to the market, dude.

How can you do more effective marketing in a down economy? Here are a few suggestions:

Change your Messaging. When I was a supply chain consultant, we sold revenue growth opportunities when the economy was doing well and cost savings ones when in a recession. It worked every time. Think about the pain your customers are now feeling and suggest ways that your solutions can help reduce the misery.

Focus on Success. No one wants to be told time's are bad. They already know it. Buying your solution should not be positioned as grasping a life raft in the storm. They want solutions that will have lasting, positive impacts on their bottom line, hopefully through good times and bad.

Increase the Frequency. Yes, I said earlier that more messages with the same focus only irritated me. But it was because the basic marketing message had not changed, or it was all doom and gloom. Sending the same old stuff out more times is not the answer. But sending new messages offering compelling evidence of revenue growth or cost savings through your solutions is the right path.

So take a few hours to review all your marketing plans sooner rather than later in 2009. We are still many months (or years) from being back to some normalcy in the economy. Spending will continue to be reined in by both consumers and businesses. Marketers will need to be very creative to attract new customers in 2009.

"Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone." -- The Dhammapada

The Buddha had it right. Your journey as an entrepreneur (and through life) should always be with your equals or better.

I often see young entrepreneurs who are overly eager to get going on their idea and end up partnering with people who will not be able to make them successful. Finding the right people can be frustrating and time consuming, but it is preferable to being stuck with incapable or worse incompetent professionals.

If you make only one resolution for 2009, let it be to hire the best possible people to help you on your journey. Many highly qualified people are available due to the recession. Take your time and find the best.

Here are a few ideas to organize your search:

Have a Plan. Sit down with your advisers and discuss what your hiring needs will be in 2009. Do it under a variety of scenarios, since no one knows how long the current recession will last. Make sure you use potential revenue production as a key driver for each new position. It's a tough economy out there.

Consider Outsourcing. Many options exist for getting all sorts of technology development, marketing, web site revisions, support operations, etc., outsourced, not just in India, but also in Eastern Europe and South America. Look at each in-house position with an eye towards whether you can get the same results much cheaper overseas.

Part Timers. I have detailed the benefits of using interim or part time people for key positions in previous Blogs, especially when the company really does not have the resources or need for full time staff. Many of the best available professionals also prefer such arrangements, especially ones who enjoy working for multiple clients. Discuss with your advisers if this might be best for your company, not only to conserve cash, but also to tap the best available talent